* At least 20 people were killed in China’s Xinjiang

The Hindu: “At least 20 people were killed in China’s Xinjiang region on Tuesday in violence that the government blamed on separatists. The incident underscored the ethnic tension in the far-western Muslim-majority region that has erupted intermittently in recent months.

The government said attackers armed with knives killed at least 13 people and injured many on a busy pedestrian street in the county of Kargilik, or Yecheng in Chinese, which is located around 250 km from Kashgar. The ancient Silk Road city of Kashgar, situated near China’s border with Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), was the scene of similar violence last July, when attackers armed with knives assaulted pedestrians and set off bombs, killing at least 20 people. The local government said the police had shot dead “seven violent terrorists” and captured two.

The government blamed last year’s violence on extremist groups who they said had been trained in camps in Pakistan. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said it was “not yet known” who was behind Tuesday’s violence.”

Xinjiang, with a Muslim majority who speak a Turkic language, is one of the two ethnic trouble-spots in China. The other, of course, is Tibet. Unlike Tibet, there is no historic dispute of sovereignty – unless you’re going back to early history pre-dating even the Muslim conversion/incursion of the ‘native’ population. Strife here is mainly due to the feeling of becoming ‘dispossessed and displaced’ with increasing influx of Han Chinese who come to seek their fortunes in a mineral rich region that also boasts warm summers suitable for sub-tropical fruit, including grapes!